I did email them back recently after getting my “your application will shortly be approved” on 13th May to ask why I’d not heard further and just got the standard “it’s in the mix, be patient and it will happen soon enough” response. Tomorrow is officially a month with no further news. Does the word “shortly” mean something else in Gaelic?
Oh well, at least we have this board to vent and check in. Beyond that there is sweet FA we can do about it.
Someone asked if notarised passports are OK for your FBR application - I can confirm that they are. For any lurkers here who are about to start the process, I can recommend two things:
1) Birth, death and marriage certificates are a matter of public record. Anyone can buy a copy of anyone’s. If you want a copy of Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s marriage certificate, you can have it ordered online within about three minutes. Point being that for me, rather than spending five months begging mum and grandma to get up in the loft and dig out certificates, I threw a little money at the issue and within 30 minutes had ordered certified copies of the four certificates I needed and they arrived days later. Way easier.
2) Search for a public notary, get everything you need together and have them notarise every single thing you need doing in one swoop, including passport copies (they will of course need to review the original and compare). They have a fancy stamp that they then sign and you can hold onto your passport.
I’ll update you all when I finally either get a confirmation email or the certificate just turns up unannounced. What’s sad is that I’ve spoken to so many people of late (in London) who would be eligible for FBR, and when I tell them it’s realistically going to take about 3 years until they actually have an Irish passport, they just feel that’s so far away, why bother. I disagree of course, but being that my friends are generally in their 40s you can understand why the possibility of getting an Irish passport in 2025 isn’t encouraging them to make the relatively high level of effort to start the process. That’s a real shame.
